The Pennsylvania State Director of American Atheists, Inc., Mr. Ernest Perce V., was assaulted by a Muslim while participating in a Halloween parade. Along with a Zombie Pope, Ernest was costumed as Zombie Muhammad. The assault was caught on video, the Muslim man admitted to his crime and charges were filed in what should have been an open-and-shut case. That’s not what happened, though.

This is a friend of mine. Here is the video…. (the quality is crappy)

Is Mr. Perce being rude? provocative? offensive? Maybe. It does not matter! He is free to Say what he wants; as are you and I.

We can say the the pope is a fool and that Mohamed is a false prophet. A Christian or Muslim can say that I am wrong and will burn in hell. These are words – that is all. What is not allowed is attacking another person.

The defendant is an immigrant and claims he did not know his actions were illegal, or that it was legal in this country to represent Muhammad in any form. To add insult to injury, he also testified that his 9 year old son was present, and the man said he felt he needed to show his young son that he was willing to fight for his Prophet.

Big bearded man has to show off for his boy by attacking a costume character in a parade? How brave and pious!

The Judge not only ruled in favor of the defendant, but called Mr. Perce a name and told him that if he were in a Muslim country, he’d be put to death. Judge Martin’s comments included,

“Having had the benefit of having spent over 2 and a half years in predominantly Muslim countries I think I know a little bit about the faith of Islam. In fact I have a copy of the Koran here and I challenge you sir to show me where it says in the Koran that Mohammad arose and walked among the dead. I think you misinterpreted things. Before you start mocking someone else’s religion you may want to find out a little bit more about it it makes you look like adufusand Mr. (Defendant) is correct. In many Arabic speaking countries something like this is definitely against the law there. In their society in fact it can be punishable by death and it frequently is in their society.

Judge Martin then offered a lesson in Islam, stating,

“Islam is not just a religion, it’s their culture, their culture. It’s their very essence their very being. They pray five times a day towards Mecca to be a good Muslim, before you die you have to make a pilgrimage to Mecca unless you are otherwise told you can not because you are too ill too elderly, whatever but you must make the attempt. Their greetingswa-laikumas-Salâm(is answered by voice) may god be with you. Whenever, it’s very common when speaking to each other it’s very common for them to say uh this will happen it’s it they are so immersed in it.

Judge Martin further complicates the issue by not only abrogating the First Amendment, but completely misunderstanding it when he said,

“Then what you have done is you have completely trashed their essence, their being. They find it very very very offensive. I’m a Muslim, I find it offensive. But you have that right, but you’re way outside your boundaries or first amendment rights. This is what, and I said I spent about 7 and a half years living in other countries. when we go to other countries it’s not uncommon for people to refer to us as ugly Americans this is why we are referred to as ugly Americans, because we are so concerned about our own rights we don’t care about other people’s rights as long as we get our say but we don’t care about the other people’s say”

But wait, it gets worse. The Judge refused to allow the video into evidence, and then said,

“All that aside I’ve got here basically.. I don’t want to say he said she said but I’ve got two sides of the story that are in conflict with each other.”

And,

“The preponderance of, excuse me, the burden of proof… “

And,

“…he has not proven to me beyond a reasonable doubt that this defendant is guilty of harassment, therefore I am going to dismiss the charge”

ABC News covers the story!

Oh…. the shit is hitting the fan!

Well, American Atheists and Mr. Perce made this story public and posted the audio from the trail on the web. The juice bit is at 28:30.

Judge Mark Martin – the presiding judge of the court proceeding — is threatening to hold Perce in contempt of court for releasing recorded audio of the case even though, according to Perce, Perce was given permission to release the audio.

When I heard about this, I assumed the zombie-prophet guy was punched or stabbed or something. This wasn’t exactly a real attack and I think you know it. The video says “he’s choking me” but the guy is speaking the entire time, so he couldn’t possibly have been being choked. I can see why the judge threw it out if this was the only evidence. The guy wasn’t harmed in any way that I can see.
I’ve seen people get beaten up for being atheistic. I’ve seen car windows broken and houses spray painted. So forgive me for not taking your “he choked me” argument seriously. There are real people that are really being attacked and sometimes killed for their lack of faith, and I find it disgusting that THIS has somehow garnered mass attention.
If he really did lay hands on you in a malicious way, I’m sorry for that, but the video doesn’t seem to show anything other than him making an empty threat. I know that no true attack should go unpunished, but I’d find it very hard to convict the muslim after seeing this.

@Mathew I’m guessing you’ve never been choked. Depending on the strength of the attacker, you may still be able to exhale; however, inhaling causes the throat to close tighter due to the vacuum effect. Just because the attack didnt leave him dying in the streets doesn’t suddenly make it OK.